Choice Illustrations

ALICE. Let’s pretend the glass has gone all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through – (She is up on the chimney-piece as she says this, and certainly the glass is beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment ALICE is through the glass, and jumps lightly down into the Looking-glass room.)

ALICE. I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard! 

GUARD. (Putting his head in at the window.) Tickets please!

ALICE. ...dear me, what a state your hair is in!

WHITE QUEEN. (Sighing.) The brush has got entangled in it! And I lost the comb yesterday.

(ALICE carefully releases the brush and does her best to get the WHITE QUEEN’S hair in order, altering most of the pins.)

(ALICE looks at the QUEEN, who seems to have suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. ALICE rubs her eyes, and looks again. She is in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her is an old SHEEP, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles.)

(The needles turn into oars in her hands, and ALICE sees that they are in a little boat, gliding along between banks.)

(ALICE forgets about the SHEEP and the knitting, as she bends over the side of the boat, with just the ends of her tangled hair dipping into the water – while she catches at one bunch after another of the scented rushes.)

(Soldiers run through the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. ALICE gets behind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watches them go by. The soldiers are quite uncertain on their feet: always tripping over something or other, and whenever one goes down, several more fall over him, so that the ground is soon covered with little heaps of men....)

(ALICE notices that the WHITE KNIGHT is dressed in tin armor, which fits him very badly...)

(ALICE watches the horse walk leisurely along the road, and the KNIGHT tumble off, first on one side and then on the other. After the fourth or fifth tumble he reaches the turn, and then she waves her handkerchief to him...)

ALICE. Oh, how glad I am to get here! (Putting her hands up to something very heavy, and fitted tight all round her head.) And what is this on my head? (To herself, lifting it off and setting it on her lap.) But how can it have got there without my knowing it? (It is a golden crown.)

(ALICE is standing before an arched doorway over which were the words “Queen Alice” in large letters, on each side of the arch there is a bell-handle; one is marked “Visitors' Bell,” and the other “Servants' Bell.”... The FROG looks at the door with his large dull eyes: then he goes nearer and rubs it with his thumb, as if he were trying whether the paint would come off.)

Anglo Saxon Attitudes

The Phrase Anglo-Saxon Attitudes - Wikipedia

"Anglo-Saxon attitudes" is a phrase spoofed by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-glass (1871):

"All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand...

"I see somebody now!" she exclaimed at last. "But he's coming very slowly—and what curious attitudes he goes into!" (For the Messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each side.) ...

                                           

"Not at all," said the King. "He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger—and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy." ...

Lewis Carroll is referring to a ninth- to eleventh-century style in English drawing, in which the figures are shown in swaying positions with the palms held out in exaggerated positions."

Songs from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

I managed to find a songbook of tunes composed for the various verses and poems in both Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass. This includes the melody of the song that the white knight sings to Alice, "A-Sitting on a Gate" which is called "Ways and Means," named "The Aged, Aged Man," and name-called (in an entirely different sense than what name-calling usually means) "Haddock's Eyes".  Alice recognizes the tune as "I Give Thee All, I Can No More" but that's actually just the first line of the song, which is actually titled "My Heart and Lute".  You can download the midi to listen to the melody.

If you're interested, the lyrics to the original song are here.

Winter

I started thinking about setting the stage for the show. It is sunnier, warmer weather when Alice goes through the Looking Glass but I like the idea of establishing the winter world she is in before doing so. 

Music:

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from Nutcracker (Images irrelevant)

The Alice of my childhood

It's got really great music and imagery.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

The way Lewis Carol thought

`You have heard of Fortunatus's Purse, Miladi? Ah, so! Would you be surprised to hear that, with three of these leetle handkerchiefs, you shall make the Purse of Fortunatus, quite soon, quite easily?' `Shall I indeed?' Lady Muriel eagerly replied, as she took a heap of them into her lap, and threaded her needle. `Please tell me how, Mein Herr! I'll make one before I touch another drop of tea!' `You shall first,' said Mein Herr, possessing himself of two of the handkerchiefs, spreading one upon the other, and holding them up by two corners, `you shall first join together these upper corners, the right to the right, the left to the left; and the opening between them shall be the mouth of the Purse.' The lower edges shall first be joined--ah, not so!' (as she was beginning to sew them together). `Turn one of them over, and join the right lower corner of the one to the left lower corner of the other, and sew the lower edges together in what you would call the wrong way.' `I see!' said Lady Muriel, as she deftly executed the order. `And a very twisted, uncomfortable, uncanny-looking bag it makes! But the moral is a lovely one. Unlimited wealth can only be attained by doing things in the wrong way! And how are we to join up these mysterious--no, I mean this mysterious opening?' (twisting the thing round and round with a puzzled air). `Yes, it is one opening. I thought it was two, at first.' `You have seen the puzzle of the Paper Ring?' Mein Herr said, addressing the Earl. `Where you take a slip of paper, and join its ends together, first twisting one, so as to join the upper corner of one end to the lower corner of the other?' `I saw one made, only yesterday,' the Earl replied. `Muriel, my child, were you not making one, to amuse those children you had to tea?' `Yes, I know that Puzzle,' said Lady Muriel. `The Ring has only one surface, and only one edge. It's very mysterious!' `The bag is just like that, isn't it?' I suggested. `Is not the outer surface of one side of it continuous with the inner surface of the other side?' `So it is!' she exclaimed. `Only it isn't a bag, just yet. How shall we fill up this opening, Mein Herr?' `Thus!' said the old man impressively, taking the bag from her, and rising to his feet in the excitement of the explanation. `The edge of the opening consists of four handkerchief edges, and you can trace it continuously, round and round the opening: down the right edge of one, handkerchief, up the left edge of the other, and then down the left edge of the one, and up the right edge of the other!' `So you can!' Lady Muriel murmured thoughtfully, leaning her head on her hand, and earnestly watching the old man. `And that proves it to be only one opening!' She looked so strangely like a child, puzzling over a difficult lesson, and Mein Herr had become, for the moment, so strangely like the old Professor, that I felt utterly bewildered: the `eerie' feeling was on me in its full force, and I felt almost impelled to say `Do you understand it, Sylvie?' However I checked myself by a great effort, and let the dream (if indeed it was a dream) go on to its end. `Now, this third handkerchief,' Mein Herr proceeded, `has also four edges, which you can trace continuously round and round: all you need do is to join its four edges to the four edges of the opening. The Purse is then complete, and its outer surface--' `I see!' Lady Muriel eagerly interrupted. `Its outer surface will be continuous with its inner surface! But it will take time. I'll sew it up after tea.' She laid aside the bag, and resumed her-cup of tea. `But why do you call it Fortunatus's Purse, Mein Herr?' The dear old man beamed upon her, with a jolly smile, looking more exactly like the Professor than ever. `Don't you see, my child--I should say Miladi? Whatever is inside that Purse, is outside it; and whatever is outside it, is inside it. So you have all the wealth of the world in that leetle Purse!' "


 Many of you might not know that Lewis Carol, in addition to all his other pursuits, was a mathematician. Here is an excerpt from Lewis Carol's book "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" Describing the creation of a remarkable purse. The "puzzle of the paper ring" mentioned is a discription of a möbius band. The Purse of Fortunatus is actually what you get when you glue every point of a möbius band to the opposite point on the band! (it cant actually exist in 3 dimensional space). Here is a picture of the möbius band, and a link to a gif of the purse (which is called a projective plane). 

http//mathhub.blogspot.com/2009/05/boys-surface-trivia-2.html

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation

In Scotland, there is a garden that is open to the public one day a year. There are far too many amazing pictures to put on this site, so go google "Garden of Cosmic Speculation"

to see the rest.